He shrugged. “Who’s to say? Such acts of violence are not uncommon. A delivery man sees something valuable. A break-in follows. These criminals are not the smartest men in the library. They assume the woman is gone, but in fact she’s still there.”
“Wait,” Nadia said. “She had a son. Bobby told me so. His name is—”
“Denys. Denys Melnik. We’re going to go have a chat with him now.”
Nadia checked her watch. “It’s only 5:20 a.m.”
“He’s an early riser.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because we’re going to wake him up.”
CHAPTER 30
They drove to Kyiv. A winding road revealed cobblestone streets, old mansions, and monuments. Nadia recognized Podil, the oldest part of Kyiv. She remembered her dinner at the River Palace, Simmy’s private club. The circumstances had been equally daunting. Bobby had been facing life in prison on a murder charge. Simmy had hired her to analyze a company for him and she couldn’t refuse. She’d needed the money. At the same time, it created an opportunity for her to go back to Chornobyl and unravel the mystery behind the murder charge. But as ominous as the prospect of Bobby at Rikers Island jail had been at the time, this was even worse. At least there was a rule of law in America, even in one of its more notorious jails. In Russia, anything could happen. There was no roll call for inmates in the morning. Bobby could vanish if the wrong people found out he was following Genesis II.
They arrived at a Victorian home on a hilltop above the River Dnipro.
“How old is he?” Nadia said.
“Nineteen.”
“What do you know about him?”
“He’s going to inherit the equivalent of 210,000 dollars from his mother’s death, and her generous pension. He’s set for a few decades. He can live in her apartment and pursue his dream of making it to the PHL.”
“PHL?”
“Ukrainian Professional Hockey League,” Simmy said.
Nadia’s head snapped toward him. “Hockey?”
“Very popular in Ukraine and Russia. Thousands of boys play as children in hope of making the pros. I know your boy Bobby is an accomplished player. I wouldn’t be quick to draw any conclusions just because this kid plays amateur hockey.”
“I wasn’t drawing any conclusions. Just noting the coincidence. Both boys hung around Arkady Shatan. Both play hockey.”
Simmy shrugged.
“What else?”
“There’s no record of Denys Melnik being treated for radiation illness.”
“You’re sure?” Nadia said.
“Yes. The records have been computerized. One of my team analyzed them earlier this morning.”
“Even if he wasn’t treated, he hung around the office, and he was his mother’s son. She could have talked. He might know more than he’s willing to share. Or, he might not be willing to share what he knows.”
“He’ll share what he knows,” Simmy said. “I wouldn’t worry about that.”
Simmy’s confidence buoyed Nadia’s spirits. For the first time since she’d met Bobby two years ago and endured a harrowing trip back to the States with him, she had a powerful, resourceful man at her side. Not that Johnny wasn’t resourceful. But Simmy was rich. There was resourcefulness, and then there were resources. There was no substitute for the latter when one needed to extract information and travel quickly across a continent.
Nadia started to get out of the car, but Simmy pulled her back in.
“My men will make sure he’s awake and dressed properly.” He winked. “They’ll even put a pot of coffee on. Then we can go inside in a civilized manner.”
Ten minutes later they sat in a parlor facing a frazzled teenager in a t-shirt and warm-up pants. Denys sat in a dining room chair that had been placed in front of a sofa. Slippers covered his otherwise bare feet. That was interesting, Nadia thought, because it suggested a certain amount of finesse on the part of Simmy’s crew. Did the boy slip them on, or did they insist he sit before them with feet covered? He’d appeared more irritated than afraid when Nadia and Simmy walked in, at least until he saw the oligarch’s face. Then his expression turned to one of awe and disbelief.
Simmy stretched his palm out toward the sofa. “May we sit down?”
The boy nodded, jaw agape.
Nadia and Simmy sat on the sofa. The two men who’d come in first stayed in the kitchen. The smell of coffee wafted into Nadia’s nostrils. She sniffed twice to make sure she wasn’t imagining it. She wasn’t. They really were making coffee.
“Please accept our condolences on the loss of your mother,” Nadia said. “Sorry to disturb you so early in the morning, but we have some urgent questions we need to ask you.”
“I told the cops everything I know,” Denys said. “Have you talked to them?”
His eyes darted in Simmy’s direction. He swallowed as though he were nervous, leaving little doubt that he wasn’t speaking the truth. Nadia knew when someone was lying to her from years of interrogating financial executives.
Obviously Nadia hadn’t spoken to the police. She prepared to give him a vague answer, one that would encourage him to re-hash everything he’d told them. But Simmy interrupted her.
“I’ve talked to the cops,” he said.
Nadia shot him a look of surprise.
He gave her a stoic look in return, and smiled at Denys. “Let me tell you what they told me.”
Simmy described the night of the burglary and murder. The most interesting part of the story was Denys’s insistence that he hid in his bedroom closet during the entire event. He told the cops he shut the door behind him, put his headphones on, cranked up the music, and didn’t hear a thing. Nadia knew from experience that the Kyiv police had more cases than they could investigate. It wasn’t surprising to her that they neither had the time nor the inclination to challenge his story. As she watched him try to stay impassive while Simmy spoke, Nadia strongly suspected he knew more than he’d told the cops. His breathing was too shallow, his pallor too stark. There was something else about his appearance that struck her as notable, but she couldn’t figure out what it was.
“Was that accurate?” Simmy said, when he was done.
“Pretty much,” Denys said.
“Now tell us the rest,” Nadia said.
“Excuse me?”
“Tell us the rest,” Nadia said. “Tell us what you didn’t tell the police.”
Alarm registered on Denys’s face.
“You might make it in the PHL,” Simmy said, “but you’ll never make it as a poker player. Do you want some coffee?”
One of the two men had poked his head in from the kitchen. He held a steaming pot of coffee in his hand.
“No,” Denys said.
“No, you won’t make it in the PHL?” Simmy said.
The kid frowned. “No. I mean no I don’t want any coffee.”
Simmy nodded at his man. “He’ll have some. Bring three cups.” He turned to the kid and dropped his chin for emphasis. “I have some connections in the PHL.”
Denys laughed. “Yeah. That’s what the other guy said.”
Simmy frowned. “Other guy?”
“What other guy?” Nadia said.
“The guy who said he knew Wayne Gretzky and pretended to be a scout.”
“The Wayne Gretzky?” Nadia said.
A wise-ass smile spread across Denys’s lips. “Is there another?”
Simmy cleared his throat just a touch slower than one normally might have for emphasis. But when he spoke his tone was relaxed, his pitch even. “Please watch your manners, son.”
Denys zipped his lips and turned eggplant. Evidently he realized that pissing off an oligarch wasn’t conducive to rapid career enhancement.
“This man who pretended to be a scout… he asked you the same questions?” Nadia said.